In existing telecommunication systems there is typically a one-to-one relationship between a caller and a called party. Each called party generally has its own Inward Wide Area Telephone Service (INWATS) or Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) number, and a caller dials the INWATS or POTS number to talk to the called party. The INWATS number is more commonly known, and will be referred to herein, as an 800 number. Often a caller will place several calls to related companies or special-interest groups in order to obtain certain desired information. For example, in making airline reservations, a caller desiring the best ticket price may call several airline companies, each of which will typically have different 800 or POTS numbers. The caller usually must therefore look up and separately dial several different numbers, and often may have difficulty locating a particular number. Even if the numbers for all the various airlines are 800 numbers, such that the caller is not charged for the calls, the need to make several separate calls often takes an excessive amount of time and is a source of considerable aggravation to the caller. The use of telephones with programmable memory and autodialing generally will not solve the problem, due to the large number of called parties which most callers will want to access.
An additional problem with existing multiple-party dialing techniques is that one called party usually does not have access to any information regarding other calls the caller has already made to related called parties. For example, the called party may be one of several companies in an industry which the caller is contacting in order to compare services, and the called party might better respond to the caller by knowing which other companies the caller has attempted to contact previously. In the airline reservation context, it may be useful for an airline to know that they are, for example, either the first or the last airline which people contact when calling several airlines seeking the best ticket price. An airline company might provide a discount to a loyal customer who repeatedly calls them first. The information could also be useful as, for example, a marketing tool to determine the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. In general, such information would allow called parties to develop a more appropriate response to the caller.
In many applications, a caller calling the INWATS or POTS number of a called party may wish to access other related called parties if the first called party is unavailable. Existing telecommunications systems are able to route an incoming call to one of several call destinations based upon caller speech commands or dual-tone multiple-frequency (DTMF) signaling from the caller telephone. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,500, entitled "Automatic Speech Recognition to Select Among Call Destinations", assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and incorporated by reference herein. However, such systems are generally maintained by a single called party for directing incoming calls within their business to one of several POTS numbers. The called party may maintain statistics regarding the routing of the incoming calls, but information regarding calls made by an incoming caller to other related called parties is generally not available. Prior art systems therefore typically do not permit calls to be placed to the different 800 or POTS numbers of, for example, different companies within the same industry, based upon a single call to a number established by a telecommunication service provider.
There are further disadvantages with existing 800 number systems and services. Under present practice, a called party establishes an 800 number by subscribing to the 800 service of one of several telecommunication service providers, which may be, for example, long distance carriers. After the number is established at the original telecommunication system provider, it is relatively easy for a called party to move their 800 number to another provider. While this present arrangement may provide some flexibility to the called party subscribers, the service provider may find it difficult to retain their original 800 number subscribers, and callers may experience erratic service due to repeated changeovers from one provider to another. If the number were established and maintained by the provider, the provider might experience less subscriber turnover, and thereby provide more consistent service to the callers.
As is apparent from the above, a need exists for efficient access to related members of an industry or other group through a telecommunication system, which avoids the need for a caller to separately dial each member of the group, and which can provide calling sequence and other information to the related group members, using a single number that may be established and maintained by a telecommunication service provider.